Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-02-23
ABOUT MlND-READlNG.
Concluding Paragraphs of an Interesting
Article Ivy w. /. Bishop.

we. Will Iuu OFcI ID lew )OlIllS lu6Il-
toned for the sake of comparison. We
found that mental energy of nerve
force is a subtle fluid, perfectly invis-
ible, generated by chemical action,
capable of transmission along fitting
conductors travelling at definite veloc-
ity of thirty-three metres per second
Foster) producing effects at distance
from it's origin, as when we voluntarily
contract finger or toe; and all this APP
plies with just as much truth to the
electric fluid. If we stimulate the prox-
imal end of a nerve with an electric
shock, so far we produce identical
phenomena with those described Now,
one step further, by insulating the body
of any animal Cones own person is the
best upon which to try the experiment.
and charging it from an electrical ma
chine we may produce effects through
the body, and yet, outside the body it.
self. An individual approaches one OF
his knuckles to the electrified body,
and a spark at once passes, accompa-
MED by approximation, and the cleo
ductor, gradually dissipates in the air
of the room. If this supersaturated
state can be obtained so easily with our
imperfect apparatus for the disturbance
of the electric fluid, why should not
SUCH perfect generator of nerve force
as the brain be able to produce, under
great activity, state in which the body
is, SO to speak, supersaturated with
nerve force? | believe it can and fire.
quently does SO among men of great
mental activity. AS in the experiment
of the super-charge of electricity, there
is another person required to show
that this state exists In the former it
must be somebody in electrical har-
mony with the insulated body, that is,
oppositely electrified; in the latter it
must be some one of strong mental
force, and in harmony with the person
SO saturated with mental energy.
Why should not nerve energy, when
in excess, travel in definite vibrations
outside the body, just as we know it
does insideP Why not dissipate itself
like electricity in the surrounding at
mosphere gradually, or disappear more
suddenly when, as with electric fluid,
the positive meets the negative wave
and so forms complete union, alb
sorbed, not lost, for no form of energy
is ever lost in the world or out of it?
We learn from Faraday that if an cleo
trio current be passed along wire in a
given direction, at the moment of MAX
ing and breaking contact, a secondary
current is set up in an opposite direc
ton in another wire or indeed any con-
ductor that is adjacent. Faraday also
sympathetic action between currents
and magnets and currents and currents.
If this state of approximation by nerve
force exists we may here have the key
to the riddle; for, if an electric current
passing in one direction can and does
set up nearly similar current in a fit
ting body lying near it, not touching it
even, and with which it has apparently
nothing whatever to do, there seems to
me no valid reason for supposin9 that
nerve force, which has been shown to
act in so many ways like electricity
Strengthening the supposition by its
greatest difference, namely its greater
subtlety), can not in a very cOncen-
trated form produce a sympathetic cur
rent, with the consequent erethism
of the cells and development OF
current, feeble it may be,
but nevertheless identical in the
brain of another Individual. There is
no argument against this in ''You GAIA
not see it, II don't believe it. You
can not see electricity except when the
two variations combine, but, at the
same time, | suppose you are scarcely
prepared to deny that the magnet does
attract steel.
1t is only in comparatively recent
times that it has been proved that there
are rays of light beyond the spectrum,
which the human eye can not appre-
ciate; that there are musical notes
which the human ear can not hear, but
which, with little doubt, many of the
lower animals can. So also there may
be, and / believe there are, rays of
nerve force, so to speak, which somein-
dividuals can not possibly be made to
feel or believe in, because, like the
s'silver churn,'' the magnet has no
power over them. MI. Bishop does
not claim to read any variety of
thought. He merely says that if you
will concentrate all your mental ener-
gy upon some object and its surround
ings he will find it. If one really con-
centrates intensely upon the picture he
sets US, it is marvellous how, when one
gets clear picture in ones own mind,
instantly it seems to flash through his
brain, and set up the apparently invol-
untary, automatic motor action neces-
sary for the achievement of his pur-
pose. There are two Or three genuine
cases on record of persons possessing
the same power as Mr.. Bishop, and
more, doubtless, will come to light as
time goes on, and psychological pheno-
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